Why Connoisseurship Matters

In 1998, in an article intended to accompany his great summa on Flemish Art and Architecture in the Pelican History of Art series, Hans Vlieghe commented on 'the significant increase in the number of new contributions on seventeenth-century Flemish art since 1960. What he did not note of course, was that he himself was responsible for much of this increase. He has ranged more widely in the field and refined it more thoroughly than any other scholar in the area.